Macintosh, nicknamed the toaster, the application that Jobs himself was ashamed, asocial network, a mouse that cannot be caught, scratches on the iPhone and other unpleasant facts. Hundreds of millions of adherents who decided for themselves that the brand is better than Apple in the world are outraged: cards in the new iOS 6 have become worse than before, and the iPhone 5 case is easily scratched. The company that is so striving for excellence made Lyap, “under Jobs there was no such thing,” they repeat as a mantra. But Apple stumbled throughout its history and worse – these are the most noticeable examples…
1. What is the Apple Macintosh 128k nicknamed the toaster. 1984
Macintosh 128k recalls as a breakthrough – he laid the foundation for the era of graphic interfaces, his advertising video “1984” went down in history. And finally, starting with him, Apple’s computers began to be called poppies. However, it was sold much worse than it could be expected from the revolutionary model. One of the main reasons was the refusal of the fan: Steve Jobs really wanted the computer not to make noise, distracting from work. As a result of a breakdown from overheating, they turned out to be very common, and the model received the nickname “Beige Toster”, which scared away many potential buyers. In 1987, Apple corrected, supplying the new Macintosh SE model with a fan.
2. Performa series in which Jobs himself confused. 1992
After the dismissal of Jobs, in the mid-1980s, Apple began to encourage any expansion of the assortment, without understanding whether consumers need it. The crown of this approach was the Performa series: models were taken for it from other episodes and renamed, creating the appearance of active work. Ordinary people only confused endless numbers, so because of the abundance of new products, sales fell, instead of growing. Even Jobs himself, returning in 1997, could not understand the assortment of the company, after which he simply created a new, radically simpler system from scratch.
3. Malicious stylus and mobile platform Newton. 1993
It would seem that a PDA with sensory screens is the direct predecessors of the iPhone triumph, only the Apple devices with the Newton OS system developed at a time when John Scully led the company (in the photo it represents this device), it turned out to be far from the triumph. There were many reasons (from insufficient battery life to delays during the development), but one of them was fundamental for Jobs: the input device was the stylus hated by him. It is not surprising that shortly after returning to Apple, he closed this direction. And in 2007, when the iPhone became one of the first smartphones without a stylus, it turned out that people really prefer to control the pocket device just fingers.
4. Round mouse: elegant, but annoying. 1998
Presenting the public the first computer of the IMAC series, Jobs called it a mouse in the form of a puck “The best manipulator in the world”. However, although IMAC himself accepted well, the opinion of buyers about the mouse turned out to be the exact opposite. The fact is that it is difficult to take it to the touch correctly (so that the cursor moves after hand, and not to the side or back), and the user had to look every time whether it is located as a button from it. As a result, the company was first forced to make small changes, and then completely returned to the traditional form of the mouse with the release of Apple Pro Mouse. The “washer” has not been remembered since then.
5. IMAC CD drives: Disappointment of music lovers. 1999
Steve Jobs could not stand the retractable trays of CD drives, preferring them minimalist slots for the disk. Therefore, although the very first IMAC 1998 was equipped with a tray, the next year the company switched to slots. And a year later it turned out that this was a big mistake: people downloaded the music more and more and wanted to record it on the discs – and the drives with a slot were only reading. The main trouble is that in the case of IMAC, unlike ordinary PC, it was impossible to buy a new drive and inserted instead of the old. As a result, a computer, before that already called the press “golden standard”, has sharply lost in popularity.
However, there is no thin one without good: this blow from the musical side became one of the reasons for the appearance in 2001 IPOD, which allowed the music lovers to abandon the disks. And the drives with slots later learned how to record discs, so that today’s IMAC is still without trays.
6. Computer Power Mac G4 Cube: for the museum, not for the user. year 2000
“Glass Cube” was, perhaps, the most effective solution of Apple designer Jonathan Aiva-not without reason he got to the New York Museum of Contemporary Art. However, the price of $ 1799 was solid even by the standards of Apple, and the target audience is not entirely clear: ordinary users have already been fascinated by IMAC (what is the system unit if there is enough monitor?), and demanding professionals preferred Power Mac G4 (more opportunities for less money). As a result, the demand turned out to be so low that already in 2001 the production of the models turned off. Since then, connoisseurs of the beautiful have bought each other’s used specimens.
7. MobileMe: an application that taught Jobs self -criticism. 2008
Simultaneously with the iPhone 3G, two Internet projects were announced: the App Store app store and a set of MobileMe online services (address book, photo gallery, file storage, etc. P.). But if Glory came to the first, then the second became the patient of the Apple callus. By his inconvenience, the press passed, because of his criticism, Jobs once shouted on his own employees. The service, to put it mildly, did not use the popularity. As a result, three years later he was changed to ICLUD-representing a new web service and telling about its virtues, even a stingy thing for self-criticism Jobs admitted: Mobileme “was not our stellar hour”.
8. Antenna iPhone 4: small engineering defect and large PR-lice. 2010
The problems with the fourth iPhone led to the grandiose scandal “Antennagate” – Apple even had to arrange a special event for criticism answers. On it, Jobs promised to supply all users for free with special covers. In fact, the elephant was made here from the fly: as numerous polls show, very few users experienced inconvenience. So, although a large -scale miscalculation really happened, it does not apply to engineering solutions, but to public relations: Steve Jobs, having received a letter from the user “My iPhone loses its connection when I take up metal sides”, categorically replied: “Just keep itotherwise “than angry many. Find it then softer words – and, probably, the matter would be limited to regrets of individual buyers about the fact that nothing in the world is completely, even the Apple smartphone.
9. Social service Ping: fashionable, but not necessary. 2010
In 2010, it was obvious to everyone that the future of social Internet services and it was necessary to quickly jump into this train. They shot a film about Facebook, the Like button introduced millions of sites, and Google has hatched plans for creating his own social network. Apple succumbed to fashion and decided to supplement iTunes with my own ping music network, which allows you to subscribe to artists and recommend music to friends. Two years later, it became finally clear that nothing came of the venture, and Ping was abolished in this September, replacing with simple fake -on “likes”. However, the Google+ social network is also not successful, and even Facebook after a successful access to the exchange began to quickly become cheaper.
10. IPhone 5 cards and scratches: it could not be otherwise. year 2012
Two main claims to the new iPhone: the new cartographic application greatly loses what happened before, and the back panel is extremely easily covered with scratches. How fair they are? It is difficult to argue with the fact that new cards are far from ideal – there is a whole blog that clearly demonstrates their mistakes. However, it is worth remembering that the Google Maps data, painstakingly gathered for many years, and in the new Apple appendix, was previously used to act independently. Surely in the coming months the most egregious moments will be corrected, and there will be less reasons for claims. In addition, Google is waiting for their own application – then everyone can choose which cards prefers.
As for the scratching aluminum corps, the scale of the problem is apparently exaggerated. Judging by the tests of various publications, the iPhone 5 really scratches easier than its predecessor – simply because aluminum is not as resistant to scratches as the previously used glass. In general, although both features of the iPhone 5 are really unpleasant, they cannot be called disaster: in the history of Apple there were more serious problems.